Police have admitted they "should have done more to arrest" the knifeman who killed three people in Nottingham city centre last year.
Valdo Calocane stabbed to death Nottingham University students Grace O’Malley-Kumar, from east London, and Barnaby Webber, along with school caretaker Ian Coates last June.
Nottinghamshire Police on Wednesday confirmed it had been in contact with Calocane - who currently awaits sentencing - "on a number of occasions between 2020 and 2022".
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Griffin revealed that when Calocane carried out his devastating triple killing, a warrant had been out for his arrest for a period of nine months.
The arrest warrant was issued in September 2022, after Calocane failed to appear in court, having allegedly assaulted a police officer while he was being transport to a specialist mental health hospital.
Nine months later, around 4am on June 13, he stabbed to death Ms O'Malley-Kumar and Mr Webber, who were studying medicine and history respectively, on Ilkeston Road as they returned home from a night out.
Mr Coates was then found dead in Magdala Road around an hour later, having also been stabbed “repeatedly”.
The defendant then used Mr Coates’ van to drive at three pedestrians, Wayne Birkett, Marcin Gawronski and Sharon Miller, in Milton Street and South Sherwood Street. They all survived the attack.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Asst Ch Con Griffin said: "The devastating impact that the events of 13 June have had and continue to have for the families of those killed and those that survived these dreadful attacks are immeasurable.
“I can confirm that Nottinghamshire Police previously engaged with the suspect, mostly while supporting our colleagues in the NHS on a number of occasions between 2020 and 2022.
“In September 2021, we were requested to support a Section 135 warrant to section the suspect under the Mental Health Act.
“We transported the suspect to Highbury Hospital and during this encounter he assaulted one of our police officers.
“In August 2022, he was reported for summons and was due to attend court on September 22, 2022 for the assault on our officer.
“He failed to appear on that occasion and a warrant for his arrest was issued in September 2022.
“The defendant was never arrested for that warrant which was still outstanding at the point of his arrest in June 2023.
“I have personally reviewed this matter and we should have done more to arrest him. However, because of the circumstance prevailing, at the time of the alleged assault, in my opinion it is highly unlikely that he would have received a custodial sentence.
“Of course, an arrest might have triggered a route back into mental health services, but as we have seen from his previous encounters with those services, it seems unlikely that he would have engaged in this process.”
Prosecutors on Tuesday accepted a plea of manslaughter from Calocane, on the basis of diminished responsibility after it was revealed he had paranoid schizophrenia.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil KC told Nottingham Crown Court the families of Mr Webber and Miss O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Mr Coates, 65, had been consulted before the pleas entered by Calocane were accepted.
Calocane pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to the manslaughter of Mr Coates and that of Ms O'Malley-Kumar and Mr Webber.
He also admitted attempting to murder three pedestrians who were hit by a van in the early hours of June 13 last year.
The 32-year-old, who appeared in the dock dressed in a dark suit and a light blue shirt, now faces a sentencing hearing expected to last for about two days.
Three psychiatrists had assessed Calocane, the court heard, concluding that despite suffering paranoid schizophrenia he would have understood the nature of his conduct in attacking three of his victims with a dagger - described in court as “a double-edged fighting knife”.
